friends who understand you. I think they are the most precious treasures on earth.

 

last night I was contemplating my most dreary birthday ever. work in the late morning, then tuition till evening. and just a short dinner with dad and grandma because mum was working, and sis was going to a barbeque.

 

and this was how the day went.

 

morning woke up about 8, and then met shiqi for breakfast and to collect my present. had a really full dim sum meal that filled me till late afternoon. felt great to be just friends finally.

 

went home, took a short nap in light of the long day ahead. woke up, and dashed to school, OCR for my work initiation (after I’d worked for like three weeks there haha). short speech by boss, then made us give our self-introductory speeches, made small talk with the pretty pretty colleagues there, and then dashed off to tuition at about 4.30.

 

amazingly mrt took ages. and I reached my kid’s home at about 6pm. tuition started really drearily, slow-paced. then I revealed to him it’s my birthday, and he gave me a shocked look. I assured him not to be guilty, and then we carried on. after about half an hour of really slow-paced english technicalities, I don’t know what I did. cracked some jokes perhaps, but suddenly the session livened up greatly. we basically had fun, with him learning stuff, and I’m really glad to see that he liked the way I taught, and asked me if I were willing to teach his classmate as well. might just consider...

 

finished around 8pm, dead beat, and headed home. initially had the impression I was having dinner downstairs with dad and grandma, and arranged to meet them downstairs, but dad said he’d ordered food, so I’d to go home direct.

 

reached home, tired. went into my room, took my clothes, and went off to take a quick shower. coming out of the shower, I noticed the food arrived. eyes were in a blur, but it looked like two or three huge pizzas to me. then I noticed a wok of funny-looking stuff on the tv table, and was asking my dad about it. he gave me some cryptic answer, and I was still trying to register it in my head, and I just continued, pushing my room door open.

 

and just as I noticed that I’d left my lights on, out pounced all six of them, with happy birthday greetings. I was totally shell-shocked. and totally touched.

 

really happy as well. and with that, my dreary birthday was flipped upside down upon its head at 9pm.

 

went out, and saw the spread they’d prepared. humongous amounts of food. and the way they conspired with my family to pull this off, and yet kept me totally in the dark about it. only one thing to say: I’m impressed.

 

and we partied on till about 1.30am. great to have so many people meet up all over again. especially since I’d only just complained about how I’ve missed everyone so much.

 

so here goes the thanking list:

 

to laura and huimin (huijun’s sister) for the coordinating work

to shuwen for coming up with the idea, and the beautiful card + photos

to yihua for coordinating on the day itself, and his mum for the fabulous food, and the paunched lion, and that really nice letter

to huijun for the fabulous food as well

to jiamin

to shiyun

to yuxun

to zonghe

to jianwei

to chunfa

to benson

to lijie

to kelvin

to dad for ordering the pizzas and everything

to mum and grandma for kindly clearing up the aftermath

 

to everyone who shared the fx creation bag and the cliniquehappy cologne (it smells damn nice!)

to zhiwei, shiqi, xiulin, chris for the earphones

to aunt for the watch and card

to laura for the watch

 

to nusjazz for the surprise celebration the previous night too

 

and to everyone else who sent their warmest wishes… and an extra thanks to yijun for making the effort to make that long-distance call.

 

I’m still profoundly touched by what has happened tonight, and I’m sure I’ll keep this in my memory forever. this certainly isn’t something that happens to everybody. and I’m proud to say that I have friends who’ve actually bothered to listen to my grumbling about how ****** up my birthday is because of work and tuition, and actually did something about it, coming up with the plans almost two weeks ago.

 

and that’s something really special about band people. we’ll always feel so comfortable together no matter how long we’ve not gathered in a huge group.

 

kinda tired, gotta go to school early tomorrow, and watch ndp as well.

 

once again, thanks to everyone,

 

for everything.

 

dejectium out

0225 hrs gmt +8
09 august 2003

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jiamin yihua huijun zonghe yuxun shiyun